their victim complex. They trash our morals over and over for giving a kid with legal trouble (such as a DUI) a second chance but when one of theirs gets one its the lowlife reporter going after a good kid. The newspaper is after them. The lack of self awareness it takes to not see something as clear as that is terrifying. Especially one thats been as recurring as that one. It would be such an easy one to see “you know what, ive got a clear bias here and maybe i was wrong in this current situation/prior situation.” But no…. This lack of self awareness continues on unmitigated and leads to things like them saying “Utah fans are obsessed with BYU” (which in and of itself is the dumbest rivalry smack one could possibly come up with. We are rivals. no f**king s**t we talk about each other) when their own players go on and on about Utah at their media day, calling it “the biggest game of the year/one we talk about every day.” Any Utah fan reacts to such comments? “omg you guys cant stop talking about us.”

Religion aside, wrapping a concept about the moral worth of a group in the behavior of a bunch of 20 year olds is going to cause, um, cognitive dissonance. Everybody likes a winning team because it reflects on the school and region in some weird way. It’s even more so for political or political-religious groups, which going to attract to odd fans/fan oddities. Who else is going to attack another team’s DUI while acting like it didn’t happen to theirs if they don’t have a belief to protect. Same goes for the studies that show frequent church goinh Christians are more likely to lie because they feel they have extra money to spend in the morals bank.

The worst is that some of them have come to troll about Lauren McCluskey’s death to recruits. Saying things like, “Glad you picked the university that won’t keep you safe.” “Sad that you put athletics over your own safety. Utah doesn’t care about athlete safety.”

The social and sociological overtones of Utah-BYU are fascinating. Back in the 70s & 80s, their athletic accomplishment amplified a sense of superiority absorbed on Sundays, and it was truly unbearable, manifested by Sports Illustrated having a spot-on article about “America’s Most Hated Team”.

Then McBride started dismantling their football “truth”, and Urban and Whit have added salt to the wound. (It’s gotten so bad in recent years that now they measure themselves against Utah State.)

It’s sports, so eventually they’ll win. But it won’t change much. They’ll continue to think/wish/hope they’ll get invited to a P5 or become the Notre Dame of the West, or whatever.

And we’ll push toward our real-life goal of getting to the Rose Bowl.

But I have to say as one who was there during the bad times, it’s been refreshing and liberating to A) get out from the day to day condescension of them as 5-Star Saints looking down upon lesser Mormons and (gasp!) Gentiles, heathens, and other horrid people, and B) get into an athletic conference of schools in nice destination cities that take seriously things like Academic Freedom, research, etc.